We all negotiate on a daily basis. On a personal level, we negotiate with friends, family, landlords, car sellers and employers, among others. Negotiation is also the key to business success. No business can survive without profitable contracts. Within a company, negotiation skills can lead to your career advancement.
I hope that you will join the hundreds of thousands of learners who have made “Successful Negotiation” one of the most popular and highly-rated MOOCs worldwide. In the course, you’ll learn about and practice the four steps to a successful negotiation:
(1) Prepare: Plan Your Negotiation Strategy
(2) Negotiate: Use Key Tactics for Success
(3) Close: Create a Contract
(4) Perform and Evaluate: The End Game
To successfully complete this course and improve your ability to negotiate, you’ll need to do the following:
(1) Watch the short videos (ranging from 5 to 20 minutes). The videos are interactive and they include questions to test your understanding of negotiation strategy and skills. You can speed up or slow down videos to match your preferred pace for listening. Depending on your schedule, you can watch the videos over a few weeks or you can binge watch them. A learner who binge-watched the course concluded that “It’s as good as Breaking Bad.” Another learner compared the course to “House of Cards.” Both shows contain interesting examples of complex negotiations!
(2) Test your negotiation skills by completing the negotiation in Module 6. You can negotiate with a local friend or use Discussions to find a partner from another part of the world. Your negotiation partner will give you feedback on your negotiation skills. To assist you with your negotiations, I have developed several free negotiating planning tools that are related to the course. These tools and a free app are available at http://negotiationplanner.com/
(3) Take the final exam. To successfully complete the course, you must answer 80% of the questions correctly. The exam is a Mastery Exam, which means that you can take it as many times as you want until you master the material.
Course Certificate
You have the option of earning a Course Certificate. A Certificate provides formal recognition of your achievements in the course and includes the University of Michigan logo. Learn more about Certificates at: https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en-us/articles/209819053-Get-a-Course-Certificate
This course is also available in Spanish and Portuguese. To join the fully translated Spanish version, visit this page: https://www.coursera.org/learn/negociacion/
To join the fully translated Portuguese version, visit this page: https://www.coursera.org/learn/negociacao
Subtitles for the videos are available in English, Ukrainian, Chinese (Simplified), Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish
Created by: University of Michigan
The course logo composite is shared with a Creative Commons CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/) license, and was created using images provided courtesy of Flazingo Photos (http://bit.ly/1zOylRm) and K2 Space (https://www.flickr.com/photos/k2space/14257556613/in/set-72157644732478432).

Unterrichtet von

George Siedel

Williamson Family Professor of Business Administration and Thurnau Professor of Business Law

Skript

Let's take a look at some other psychological tools and traps that might arise in an negotiation like the house on Elm Street. First, the principal of availability, which means that we make decisions on the basis of information that is easy to retrieve. It's hard to determine from these facts where availability might apply, but just for example, when Tracy and Pat are thinking about the values of the house. I think it's easy for them to rely on some information that's very easily, easy to retrieve, such as the tax assessment on the house, and the value of the most recent sale in the neighborhood. And, by doing that, perhaps they overlook some other information, such as the appreciation in real estate values. The facts state, in both roles, that there has been substantial appreciation in real estate over the fa, past few years. So, whether this is availability or anchoring, there are other explanations. But, I imagine there's a tendency for you and I to rely on the numbers that are easily available, the tax assessment and the prior sales price. Escalation is another psychological tool or trap, and our basic takeaway from our discussion from escalation was that as negotiators, we should try to look at negotiations from the perspective of the other side. This is what separates good negotiators from great negotiators. And so, for example, if you are Pat, try to look at the real estate sale from the perspective of the uncle. If you have asked the right questions earlier, you know that the uncle is old, in poor health. You know that the house has not been well maintained, and so looking at it from his perspective, you realize that probably he wants a sale as soon as possible. Another principle is reciprocation, or also known as reciprocity. Which means that if you give something to the other side, they feel a need to repay you. Now, reciprocity at a negotion, negotiation like this often arises when there are multiple issues. And, some of these issues mean more to one side than to the other. Which gives you a chance to give something to the other side, and perhaps get something in return. So, for example, in this negotiation, the uncle wants a piece of tile from the kitchen. Unknown to the uncle, giving the tile means nothing to Pat, because the house is going to be knocked down, in any event. As far as Pat is concerned, the uncle could have the entire kitchen if he wants to. But, of course, Pat is not going to mention that. And so, what Pat could do is to mull over the request. Make it sound as though it's a difficult request. And then, maybe offer the uncle, not only the tile, but something else from the kitchen. Maybe, there are other tiles in the kitchen. And, so Pat could say to the uncle, look, it appears that this tile means a lot to you, what if I gave you the whole set of tiles? So, Pat would be giving something to the uncle, and then the uncle, with given human nature, might feel the need to reciprocate, to give something back to Pat. So, when it comes time to negotiate something that's important to Pat, such as the date of transfer of possession, the uncle might be more willing to budge. So, that's how reciprocity plays out in a multiple issue negation like this. We have the contrast principle, where items look quite different when presented in sequence, and that principle is probably is not relevant in this particular negation. The final psychological tool, or trap is the big-picture perspective. Which is basically saying don't get lost in the details. This is another very important perspective. And, I want to save that, along with the fixed-pie assumption, for our concluding look at this negotiation. So, I'm going to put that on the shelf for a few minutes. So, those are the nine psychological tools and traps, and how they apply to this negotiation.